


I do not think that they will sing to me.

by raregoose



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Age Regression/De-Aging, Hand Jobs, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, Sharing a Bed, but only... kind of, imo tagging it would be a spoiler, its not that sad I promise, theres one side pairing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-07 13:00:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18621124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raregoose/pseuds/raregoose
Summary: Nikolaj turns into a baby in early December.Blake, ever the caring captain, offers to take him in. Mark, ever the pining alternate captain, offers to help Blake with whatever, whenever. His own house is too big, too empty, anyway. Blake shouldn't have to do it alone.It'll probably be just a few weeks, they assume incorrectly.





	I do not think that they will sing to me.

**Author's Note:**

> during the jets hospital visit this year, blake held a baby and things spiraled from there.
> 
> heres a little work about falling in love with your captain, having to take care of your teammate who suddenly turned into a baby, and, of course, the all-consuming, suffocating weight of loneliness! 
> 
> title come from the T.S. Eliot poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
> 
> okay sorry one more thing and then i promise im done: a big part of this fic is mark being a limited narrator and him missing a lot of whats going on around him bc hes pre-occupied with blake and nikolaj, so just keep that in mind!

“Wheels! Wheels!” is the first thing Mark hears when he walks into the locker room in the morning for practice. It’s Patrik’s voice, from the tunnel down to the ice. Blake’s in the locker room, suiting up, and he stands and looks over at Mark in concern. The shouts are quickly followed by Patrik entering the locker room, already in his full gear, holding his stick in one hand and his helmet under his arm, eyes wide and terrified.

“Wheels, something just happened—it’s Fly—I don’t know what I did—but he’s just, he, I,” Patrik splutters, gesturing wildly. “I think you should come to the ice right now.”

Blake’s just in his pants and skates, and Mark’s still in his sneakers, but they follow Patrik out to the ice, grimacing at each other and just hoping that Nikolaj isn’t horribly injured.

But when they reach the rink, Nikolaj isn’t in sight. Patrik walks out on the ice anyway, skating back over to the net. When Mark steps carefully onto the ice, he sees what the problem is, even if he doesn’t understand it right away. There’s an infant with a shock of white hair sitting at the top of the circle, covered in a massive jersey, equally oversized skates and hockey pants beside him.

The baby squeals and reaches his chubby hands out at the sight of the three of them.

“What sort of fucking prank is this, Patty?” Blake asks, pointing at the baby. “Whose kid is that?”

“That’s _Nikolaj_ ,” Patrik says, and his eyes are so wide and afraid that Mark almost believes him.

“Cut the shit out.” Blake skates over and carefully lifts and cradles the baby. “Nikolaj isn’t an infant, last time I checked.”

Maybe-Baby-Nikolaj gurgles and reaches up, grabbing Blake’s beard and giggling. 

Mark laughs in spite of himself. “You sure that’s not Fly, Wheels? They seem pretty similar to me.” He’s only half-joking. The baby is blonde-haired and blue-eyed, with a chin that could easily be Nikolaj’s in twenty years.

“I swear it is. We were just shooting, having a bet. First to hit the crossbar five times wins, and loser has to do whatever the winner wants. I won, and he was being a sore loser, and I said that my first wish was for him to stop being such a baby, and then. Poof.” Patrik splays out his fingers. “Baby.”

Mark and Blake exchange another look. It’s hard to believe, impossible even, but Nikolaj’s stuff is in the locker room and Nikolaj isn’t in the locker room or the rink and this would be a stretch of a prank, even for Patrik and Nikolaj.

Patrik skates over to Blake. Maybe-Baby-Nikolaj’s face lights up; he scrambles in Blake’s arms and reaches out to Patrik until Blake fumbles to hand him over. The baby wraps his tiny arms around Patrik’s neck and coos into the crook. Patrik flushes, and struggles to get a handle on the squirming baby.

“Okay. Now I think I believe you,” Blake says, raising his eyebrows. “At the very least, it’s not some random baby, and I’m pretty sure you haven’t fucked up bad enough yet to get some girl pregnant.”

“I’m pretty sure I saw Adult-Nikolaj do the exact same thing to Patrik yesterday, so I buy it,” Mark adds.

“So. Can you please _help_ me? You are both, like, adults.” Patrik fumbles with the baby, and eventually passes him back to Blake.

“Let’s, uh, let’s go back to the locker room.” Blake flips the switch into Captain Mode, hefting the baby up into his arm and pushing with strong strides back to the tunnel.

The rest of the guys have begun to show up as the start time of practice draws closer, and the locker room is nearly full when Mark follows Blake back in.

“The fuck, Wheels?” Adam says, double-taking. “Since when did you have a baby?”

Everyone who hadn’t already noticed Baby-Nikolaj does then, turning and staring. Blake holds the baby out, hands under his armpits. The practice jersey is comically large on him. Nikolaj giggles again, reaching his arms out to the guys.

“This is, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but this is Nikolaj, everyone,” Blake says, to the silent wide-eyed surprise of twenty Jets.

After a long pause, Andrew stands. “I think I speak for everyone when I say, _what the fuck_?”

The dam breaks, and suddenly there’s twenty voices all speaking over one another. Mark looks to the other two standing next to him. Patrik is sinking into his own body, but Blake stands his ground.

“Hey. Hey!” Blake yells, hushing the cacophony of voices. “None of us are really sure what happened, but this baby is Nikolaj and we’re all gonna have to deal with it, so shut the fuck up!”

Nikolaj gurgles and smiles.

In the same moment, Paul walks into the room with his clipboard. Everyone turns and stares at him. There’s a long beat of silence. Paul sighs.

“I don’t get paid nearly enough for this,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m gonna go take a lap, and when I get back I want a succinct explanation as to why there’s a baby in the practice gear.”

Paul turns and walks right back out.

“Alright,” Blake says, calmly and evenly. He walks to his stall and sits, bouncing Nikolaj in his lap. “Patty, would you like to explain?”

“Um.” Patrik freezes. “Well. I just told Nikolaj, like, stop being a baby, and he kinda did the opposite of what I asked.”

“Does he have a baby brain, or is he still regular Nikolaj, just in a baby body?” Mathieu asks, padding over to Blake in his socks. Mark feels relieved that there’s guys like Mathieu, Dustin, and Dmitry on the team that have kids and probably know what they’re doing.

“We’re not sure,” Blake replies. He looks down at Nikolaj. “You in there, Fly? Can you talk? Do you know what’s going on?”

“Bababa!” Nikolaj says, grabbing the Jets logo on Blake’s chest.

“Hm,” Blake says.

“Seems like a—I’m not totally sure the English word—an un-aging,” Dmitry says. “Maybe you call it de-aging?” Everyone looks at him blankly.

“Do you not know about this?” It’s Dmitry’s turn to be confused. “It’s a common thing in Russia. There’s always a reason for it, but sometimes it’s not always so clear. He’ll turn back when he’s ready.”

“When he’s _ready_?!” Mark squeaks. “There’s no way to speed up the process?” He feels dizzy. That’s his _winger_. His winger is a _baby_.

“Not really, sorry,” Dmitry replies. 

“Someone’s just gonna have to take care of him until he’s normal again,” Blake says softly, looking down at Nikolaj. Nikolaj has an entire baby hand wrapped around Blake’s thumb, and Blake is bouncing him gently on his knee.

“I’m not going to force any of you to take a baby,” comes a voice from the doorway, and Mark turns to see Paul standing there, still holding his clipboard, seemingly having overheard enough to understand the situation, “but I’m hoping someone volunteers, because no one is speaking a _word_ of this to the media.”

“Some _upper-body injury_ , eh?” Mark hears Andrew whisper.

“Paul, I’ll do it.” Mark spins again in surprise to Blake, not expecting him to volunteer. But Blake has that look in his eyes that he has on the bench sometimes, stern and confident and unswayable.

Paul clearly recognizes the look as well, because he just sighs and nods. “You better know what you’re doing.”

They leave Nikolaj with a trainer while they practice, and they try to power through. Kyle comes back to Mark and Blake’s line, and Mathieu and Bryan try to motivate the distracted Patrik. 

“Hey. You sure you can take of the baby?” Mark rests against the boards. Blake is leaning against his stick; he shrugs. “Can you do it yourself?”

Blake is Mark’s captain. If he ever needs any help, Mark is there.

“I’ve always wanted kids,” he says. “Never got the chance. Plus, it’ll probably only be a few weeks.”

Mark nods. He thinks about Blake holding Nikolaj, bouncing him on his knee and talking to him gently, and his heart tightens. He wants to help any way he can. He feels anxiety rise about road trips and the media and everything that comes along with their jobs. What will people say when it becomes clear that Nikolaj has mysteriously disappeared off the face of the earth?

_Nikolaj Ehlers not on the ice for #NHLJets this morning._

_Paul Maurice says Ehlers has a ‘malaise’ again. Still no indication as to what ‘malaise’ might mean._

_When asked whether Ehlers’ ‘malaise’ is upper or lower body, Maurice replied, ‘oh, you know’ and did not comment further._

Mark discovers through Twitter exactly what people are saying about Nikolaj’s disappearance. He’s at home, the house quiet and empty, Andrew lying on the couch and Mark in the kitchen, poking through the cabinets.

He’ll just bring a meal over to Blake’s apartment. Not a big deal. He’ll make a chicken breast, some rice. It’s Blake’s favorite, and it’s easy. He putters around and cooks, scrolling through his phone, liking posts on Instagram and texting Andrew even though he’s only one room over. The house feels a little too big sometimes.

Mark packs up the meal and drives to Blake’s apartment. It’s early December and the Winnipeg sky is gray. Just perfect for something stupid to happen to their team just as the season is ramping up. Before long it’ll be the Christmas break, and then the All-Star Break, and if Nikolaj isn’t back by the bye week, they’ll be seriously fricked.

Mark texts Blake, and he’s at the door when Mark gets to his floor. He’s got Nikolaj in one arm and a mallet in the other.

“Hey, Scheifs,” he says, holding the door to let Mark inside. There’s a half-assembled crib in the living area. “If anyone asks, I have a sister who’s pregnant. Turns out even IKEA employees recognize Jets players.”

“Oh,” Mark says, raising his eyebrows and imagining how Blake’s afternoon must’ve gone. “How’s Nikolaj?”

“He’s good. He’s a pretty calm baby, which is a welcome surprise. Aren’t you? Aren’t you?!” Blake addresses Nikolaj, bouncing him in his arm. Mark smiles and Nikolaj squeals in joy.

“Baba!” he says, putting a tiny hand on Blake’s cheek. Mark feels a pang in his heart.

“I think I’ve deduced that he probably… de-aged, or whatever Kuli called it, to about six or seven months.” Blake walks further into the apartment, and Mark follows him, past the crib into the small kitchen, where there are a plethora of bottles and cartons of various baby foodstuffs on the counter. “Which is pretty lucky because it sounds like breastfeeding is not _as_ important then. I bought some formula, which I guess isn’t as great as breast milk, but I figure Nikolaj did the whole… _baby_ thing already and turned out okay so I think I can get away with formula.”

Mark watches Blake talk, gently bouncing Nikolaj with one hand and gesticulating with the other, brow furrowed the same way as it does when he watches tape of the power play, and realizes that Blake is probably going to be really good at this parenting thing.

“Uh. Wow. Okay.” Mark blinks. “I brought you some chicken to help you out, but it seems like you’ve got everything handled.”

Blake double takes at the tupperware Mark is holding. “Oh God, I wasn’t even thinking about feeding _myself_. You’re a lifesaver, Scheif.” He takes the tupperware and puts it in the fridge, which is decidedly more colorful on the inside than it used to be.

“And if you ever need anything else, you can just text me.” Mark shifts on his feet. “You shouldn’t have to do this alone. I can help buy stuff, or babysit if you wanna go out, or cook, or—”

“Scheif. Stop thinking so hard.” Blake nudges him with his shoulder. “I’ll let you know if I need anything. Don’t worry ‘bout me.”

Mark nods, and leaves; he sits in his car for a long time, stomach feeling strange and gurgly. When he goes home, Andrew is nowhere to be found, so Mark turns on the TV and watches hockey on mute for a few hours, feeling listless. When he goes to bed that night, his bed feels too big, too empty, and he tosses and turns for a long time before he can finally slip into sleep.

The week brings the beginning of a four game homestand. Blake brings Nikolaj to the rink, dressed in hand-me-down clothes from other players’ kids, but brand-new sneakers. Nikolaj sits with trainers during practices and games. Blake carries him in and out in his suit, speaking sweetly to him, Nikolaj responding with “bababa”s and tiny hands on his face.

“Fly is never going to hear the end of this when he gets back,” Bryan says to Mark as Nikolaj sits in his currently unused stall, mouthing at his elbow pad, the name tag _N. Ehlers_ still slipped in above the stall despite the fact that it might be awhile before Nikolaj can play.

“I dunno. Wheels might kill anyone who tries to chirp his kid,” Mark replies. Across the locker room, Blake walks over to Nikolaj, kneels beside him, pulls the elbow pad gently out of his mouth, and gives him a bottle, trying to feed him a little formula before they head out to the ice for practice.

“Damn, you’re right.” Bryan shakes his head. “That dynamic is gonna be so fucked once Blake can’t project his, like, baby fever or whatever the fuck he’s working through onto Nik anymore.”

Mark sucks air in between his teeth. Bryan’s right, like he usually is.

*

The first week is a weird time, to say the least, with the team. Patrik goes quiet and tense and uncomfortable whenever Nikolaj is around, and it’s showing in his game. Blake is running himself ragged, giving 110% on and off the ice. The rest of the guys are tip-toeing around the issue. The media starts to notice Nikolaj’s extended absence.

_Still no Ehlers at practice. Maurice provided no update._

_We are closing in on a full week without Nikolaj Ehlers. Still no indication as to what his current ‘malaise’ is. He also has not been seen with the injured and scratched players in the press box during games._

Mark raises his eyebrows and whistles lowly as he reads the tweets that evening in the kitchen as he cooks dinner. Andrew’s sitting across from him, and he chuckles at his face.

“You on Twitter?” he asks.

“Yup.”

“That Mike McIntyre is one nosy bitch, eh?” Andrew laughs.

“There’s no way no one finds out about this if he doesn’t change back soon,” Mark murmurs, shaking his head. He stirs the quinoa.

He’s about to put his phone down when it starts ringing. The screen reads _Wheels_ , and Mark hurries to pick it up, worried something has gone wrong.

“Wheels?” he says, a waver sneaking into his voice.

“Scheif? Can you, um, can you come over? Fly spat up everywhere and I have no un-pureed food in my apartment and he won’t. Stop. Crying.” Blake’s voice is exhausted over the line, and Mark can hear the crying baby in the background.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m coming, Wheels. Sit tight.” Mark pulls out a tupperware and scoops all the food he’d just prepared for him and Andrew into it.

Andrew raises his eyebrows but says nothing.

“Sorry,” Mark says, wincing, as he grabs his keys and rushes out.

When he arrives at Blake’s apartment, Blake is ruffled and there are stains on his shirt but he seems to have handled the spit-up already. Nikolaj is still crying, though, and Blake is bouncing him like a man on a mission when he lets Mark in.

“Let me,” Mark says, lifting Nikolaj out of Blake’s arms and trying to soothe him.

“Sh-sh-sh-sh,” he says, holding Nikolaj’s tiny head as he blubbers. He hands the tupperware to Blake. “How do you even get a baby to stop crying? Should I sing to him?”

Blake shrugs. “If I had a good idea, he wouldn’t still be crying.”

A song, okay. He just needs to think of a good one. He comes up blank for a moment before it comes to him.

“Fly, Fly, hey,” Mark says. He breathes in, then starts to sing. “This could be the start, of something new, it feels so right, to be here with you, whoa-oh.” His singing voice is wobbly and quiet, and he steps back and forth, rocking Nikolaj in his arms. Mark looks at Blake wildly as he sings, shrugging but not stopping. Nikolaj is looking at Mark curiously with his big watery eyes. “And now looking in your eyes, I feel in my heart, the start of something new…”

Nikolaj is quiet a second. Then he bursts into giggles, and Mark’ heart shatters. His chin wobbles, and as Nikolaj puts one of his tiny palms on his chest, he turns to Blake and says, “He’s too cute!”

“You’re a natural,” Blake says. Mark smiles shyly.

Nikolaj grabs Mark’s shirt and babbles, “Mamamama!”

Mark’s heart is officially irreparable. It’s been crushed into a thousand cuteness-overload induced pieces.

“I think he remembers us, at least a little,” Blake says. “He keeps calling me ‘Baba’.”

“That’s our Fly,” Mark says, spinning the baby around. “Now why can’t you just hurry up and come back? People are worried about you, you know.”

Mark chats at Nikolaj as Blake sets out dishes and plates Mark’s hastily packed food. 

“Oh,” Mark says, noticing the second plate. “No, Wheels, you can pack up half and save it. I don’t need to eat here; I can go back to my place and make myself something else.”

“You made this, you should be able to enjoy it too,” Blake replies, voice stern, sitting and pushing Mark’s plate towards him.

“No, c’mon, it’s fine, I don’t want to eat food that you could save for later.” Mark puts Nikolaj down in the high chair by the table. It’s not that he _doesn’t_ want to stay for dinner. He does. He wants to stay a _lot_ , actually, but he’s worried about Blake, his dark circles and messy hair. The least Mark can do is make sure Blake is eating.

“Please? I want you to. Don’t think of it as me doing something for you, think of it as you doing something for me. I’d like to have dinner conversation with someone capable of producing more than three syllables of English.” Blake smiles wryly, and Mark gives in, falling into the chair across from Blake. “Not that I don’t love our conversations, of course,” Blake says as an aside to Nikolaj, and Mark laughs.

They talk for a long time after they’re done eating, mostly about hockey because their jobs are their entire lives, but also about stupid things, weather and politics and football. Blake compliments Mark on his quinoa, and he preens. He does, indeed, make a mean quinoa.

Blake’s apartment is small, and the kitchen is a little cramped, especially with new baby contraptions littered everywhere. The guys always give him shit for it, since he makes millions of dollars a year and still lives in the same tiny apartment instead of a huge spacious house with more rooms than he knows what to do with.

“I’ve always liked it a bit smaller,” Blake admits when Mark is putting the dishes away and comments on the size as he bumps around. “It feels, I dunno, cozier, maybe.”

Mark can actually agree with that. The house he lives with Andrew in is massive and empty, more space than they know what to do with. “Mm, that’s fair,” he says, mostly to himself as he organizes Blake’s forks.

He reaches up to put glasses that were in the drying rack away, but Blake is up and behind him in a flash, one hand anchored on the jut of Mark’s hip and the other reaching up to take the cup out of Mark’s hand. There isn’t enough space in the kitchen for them to breathe. Mark and Blake are both big guys, and in the tiny apartment, they’re boxed in between the cabinets and the island. “Leave those out, actually,” he says, right in Mark’s ear. Mark, mostly in surprise, loosens his grip on the cup and allows Blake to take it.

It seems like Blake realizes their position, because he stumbles back and clears his throat. “I, uh, I like having cups out, in case I want water later,” he explains. Mark nods vigorously, but says nothing. He’s hot all over like he’s sunburnt. Blake puts the glass down with a _clink_ on the counter.

Nikolaj babbles from his high chair, and they both turn to him. He’s giggling, and mashing his hands into his applesauce. 

“Oh boy. Okay, someone needs his bath,” Blake says, picking Nikolaj up. He turns to Mark. “Thanks for eating with me. Please, can we do it more often?”

Mark nods, and takes his cue to leave. Driving home, he can’t seem to stop his hands from trembling. He grips the steering wheel until his knuckles turn white. The tupperware in the passenger seat slides around freely as he drives through the outskirts of Winnipeg.

Everyone is a little in love with Blake when they first make the team. It’s a joke with the guys, even. He’s just so… _solid_. He’ll pat you on the back when you need it and he’ll light a fire under your ass when you need that, too. Rookies come to Winnipeg, fall a little in love with their captain, and then in time understand that he’s just _like_ that, and they grow out of it.

Mark maybe never grew out of it. But nobody knows Blake like Mark does. Nobody understands his idiosyncrasies the way Mark does, the subtle meanings behind the cock of an eyebrow. No one else gets a look in on Blake’s life the way Mark does; Blake shares things with Mark that he doesn’t with anyone else.

He brakes too hard at a stoplight and the tupperware flies off the seat, plastic rattling as it bounces off the glove box.

+

They leave for a three game roadie on the west coast, and Blake leaves Nikolaj with Mathieu’s wife. They perform a complex hand-off after the skate before their flight, Blake nervous and over-prepared, and Mathieu amused at his mania.

“Wheels, take a deep breath.” Mathieu grabs Blake’s shoulders. “Fly’s gonna be fine. Jenny is a superhero. And besides, there’s still a tiny adult hiding in that even tinier baby.”

Mark’s undressing next to Bryan, who chuckles. “Wheels is acting like me,” he jokes to Mark, referencing his own new fatherhood. “He’s a natural.”

“He’s certainly grown attached,” Mark replies liltingly. 

Patrik sits in the stall on Mark’s other side; in his periphery, Mark can see him screw up his face the same way he does when he misses a one-timer. Andrew’s next to Patrik, and he bends towards him and whispers something. Patrik nods, but doesn’t make eye contact. Andrew pats Patrik’s knee firmly. Mark makes a mental note to do his alternate captain thing and talk to one or both of them at some point.

But the schedule of the road trip is grueling, especially as their bodies adjust to the time change. Every time Mark tries to corner Patrik, he slips through his fingers, able to make some excuse or another or disappear back to his room at the exact right moment. Blake is similarly unavailable, constantly on the phone with Mathieu’s wife or talking to Dmitry about his experiences with de-aging.

“One more thing,” Blake says in the locker room in Vancouver, before the final game of the road trip, and Dmitry finally draws the line.

“Wheels. You need to stop. It’s gonna be fine.” He puts his foot down, and Blake blinks.

“Fuck,” he says. “I’ve been really crazy this week, haven’t I?”

“A little bit.” Dmitry pats his shoulder.

“Aw, Wheels is experiencing first-time parenting anxiety!” Dustin laughs. He leans in and noogies Blake.

Blake flushes. “It’s not _parenting anxiety_ ,” he grumbles. “Fly’s our teammate. I just want him to get back him to normal as soon as possible.”

Dustin snorts. A few of the guys chuckle, some trying to cover the mouths, but most not worried about keeping their opinions on Blake’s recent baby fever secret.

“I know you’re already, like, team dad,” Adam says, “but you’ve definitely taken it up a notch lately by quite literally adopting one of us.”

“Okay, I get it.” Blake throws his hands up in surrender.

That seems to break some sort of seal, and suddenly there’s an exhale over the de-aging issue in the locker room. The guys give shit to Blake about it like it’s anything else, and he rolls his eyes. They’re back in Winnipeg for just over a week, Christmas and two games. 

Blake takes Nikolaj back from the Perreaults, and he calls Mark nearly every night. They cook and eat dinner together and Mark helps with Nikolaj, singing _High School Musical_ songs to him when he cries and dancing around during bathtime to make him laugh. Being around Blake and Nikolaj is easy. It’s just habit, the way they share space so effortlessly that they don’t even need to think twice. He cooks rice for Blake and Blake cooks quinoa for him. Mark distracts Nikolaj with funny faces while Blake coerces him into eating his pureed medley of fruits and vegetables.

“Is this on the diet plan?” Mark jokes one night as peach puree dribbles down Nikolaj’s chin.

“I dunno, but I think if we tried to feed him what he usually eats, we’d have either a very sad or very dead baby,” Blake says, trying to spoon the puree from Nikolaj’s chin into his mouth. “And I feel like the dieticians would prefer we keep him alive.”

Mark laughs and sinks back into his chair. He’s grown comfortable with his new routine, the daily phone call from Blake and the few hours they spend together. If he closes his eyes and flips the picture over, it almost seems domestic. The meals they share are almost date nights. The way their hands brush as they pass Nikolaj back and forth is almost intimate. The comfort with which Mark shows up and kicks his shoes off is almost practiced, the way he leaves random things at Blake’s apartment almost cohabitative. 

Nikolaj spits peach puree out of his mouth and down the front of his shirt.

“Jesus, fuck, Fly,” Blake grumbles, grabbing a napkin to dab at the goo. Nikolaj laughs, reaching out and grabbing Blake’s hair with sticky hands as Blake leans over to try to clean him off.

“Bath time?” Mark asks, humor in his voice. Blake looks at him wearily and nods. “Okay, you wipe him off, I’ll get it running.”

Mark runs the bath and sets up the baby tub, rolling up his sleeves and feeling the water for temperature. He’s humming to himself quietly, pulling out the baby shampoo, when he feels eyes on him. He looks up to see Blake standing in the doorway holding Nikolaj. He’s looking at Mark but not saying anything, like he’s contemplating him.

Mark feels self-conscious, and says, “you ready?”

Blake blinks out of his weird daze and clears his throat. “Yeah,” he says.

They give Nikolaj his bath and Mark is suffocated by the domesticity of it all. He can’t help but imagine a future where Nikolaj isn’t _Nikolaj_ but Mark and Blake’s own child, a time when the co-parenting would be not out of necessity but of their own choosing. Blake would be a great dad. He already is, in a way, and Mark’s heart pounds twice as fast as it should. He’s not sure how much longer he can keep playing house with Blake before he can’t take it anymore, before he’s entirely smothered by feeling like they actually _are_ together and it’s not just to help out a teammate.

The feeling swells, but ebbs again once Mark is slipping his shoes back on and driving home to Andrew. It snaps him out of the haze of it, reminds him that Blake’s just a friend and a teammate and that he has to go back to his own house at the end of the day, throw his keys on the clean white countertop and sit on the clean white couch with Andrew. They watch hockey and talk about plays and Andrew doesn’t ask about Blake or Nikolaj.

At the end of the night Mark goes to bed and is alone again.

*

Mark goes home for Christmas. His phone rings, but he’s in Toronto with his family and doesn’t notice anything until he’s in the airport later that night.

 _Wheels, two missed calls_ , his phone screen reads, and his heart sinks.

Mark clicks the icon; the voicemails are spaced about a half an hour apart, just around dinnertime, right when Blake would’ve called Mark if he had wanted to eat with him.

Mark clicks the first and holds his phone to his ear, worrying his lip with his teeth. “Hey Scheif!” Blake’s voice crackles over the line. “Just wondering if you wanted to do dinner with me and Fly tonight! Fly’s having pureed carrots and chicken for dinner and I’m having solid chicken, so it’s pretty exciting.” He laughs, and Mark’s heart tightens. “Anyway. Let me know. You don’t have to come over, though. Don’t feel like you can’t, y’know, go out with Copper if you want.”

People mill through the gates, and Mark sits with his carry-on in his lap and feels utterly and entirely alone. His heart breaks for Blake, not with his family, taking care of Nikolaj on Christmas.

He puts his phone in his pocket for a long time before he musters the courage to pull it out and listen to the second voicemail. A woman with two toddlers in tow sits beside Mark at the gate, giving him a polite smile and nod when she sits down. Mark watches the two kids run around the gate, squealing and laughing, carrying dolls that must be Christmas gifts. 

He clicks the second voicemail, clenching his teeth. “Oh, God, Mark, it’s Christmas.” Blake’s voice is broken, and Mark nearly stops the recording right then. “I’m so sorry. And you _told_ me you were going home too, and I just forgot completely. Sorry. You don’t need to call me back.” There’s a long pause and a slight muffling of the receiver, like Blake took the phone away from his face and covered the microphone with his hand. “Um. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas, Scheifs. Have a safe flight home. I’ll see you soon.”

The line clicks off, but Mark holds the phone to his face and listens to the static for another minute anyway, feeling his chin wobble. He squeezes his hand into a fist, pressing his nails into his palm, determined not to cry in a very crowded airport, especially when someone could recognize him at any time. He covertly wipes the wetness clouding his eyesight and scrubs his hands over his face, trying to clear his head. 

When he looks up, the two toddlers are staring up at him with huge eyes. He looks at them, not sure what they want, before realizing that they’re just kids and all they probably want is for him to be friendly.

He forces a smile and waves at them, and they giggle and toddle away back to their mother. She smiles at Mark and scoops them up, one in each arm.

The plane ride is short but feels impossibly long. Back in Winnipeg, Mark sits in his car and stares at Blake’s contact in his phone. It’s _really_ late, and Blake is no doubt asleep, but maybe he should call anyway.

No, he can’t call. He tosses his phone to the passenger seat and drives out onto the empty roads, exhausted and ready to fall asleep. He’s driving purely on muscle memory, and without realizing it, he ends up on Blake’s road instead of his own, in front of Blake’s apartment complex, pulled over on the side of the road counting up floors to find Blake’s window.

The light is off. Mark shakes his head, and pulls back into the road; he drives himself back home. Andrew’s not back yet, so the house is cold and empty when he crawls into bed. Blake is one neighborhood over, also alone in his bed. It strikes Mark as curious, and maybe a little wasteful. Why have two beds, one massive and one cozy, when they would fit just as fine into one together? He dozes off, fantasizing about his bed not being cold, but warm with Blake’s big body wrapped around him.

Everyone else gets over it. Guys have girlfriends and wives or at least a couple girls on Instagram they rotate through. But Mark can’t let go. Blake’s still the same man he was when Mark was 20 and apparently Mark is still the impressionable and stupid kid that fell and falls and will continue to fall in love, over and over again, every time Blake’s eyes crinkle when he smiles or Blake cradles Nikolaj like he’s his own son or Blake taps their helmets together before a game.

*

Calgary is in town on Thursday. Mark’s on the phone with Blake, pacing around the kitchen and picking things out of the refrigerator to bring to Blake’s apartment for their pre-game meal. “No, I saw the tape,” he’s saying. “Oatesy sent it to me. We looked like garbage on that play.” Blake jokes about being gassed on the play in question and Mark laughs. Andrew’s in the kitchen too, assembling his own pre-game meal. He turns to look at Mark, but his face is neutral.

“Anyway,” Blake says, a smile in his voice. “What are we eating tonight, Chef Scheif?”

Mark peers at the tupperware. “Hmm, looks like sweet potato and chicken. Do you have salad, or should I get some lettuce on my way?”

“Nah, I’ve got stuff. Just hurry up and get over here. Fly’s being annoying.” Mark thinks he can hear babbling over the line. Mark collects all the food and reaches for his keys.

“Okay, okay, I’m leaving now.” Mark reaches up to give Andrew a quick wave. There’s something unreadable about Andrew’s face, but Mark doesn’t give it much consideration.

At Blake’s, they eat in contented silence, looking at their phones and chatting when something is interesting. Mark’s scrolling through Twitter.

_Three weeks since the onset of Nikolaj Ehlers’ most recent ‘malaise’._

_Ehlers has not been seen in three weeks. He has not skated._

_Paul Maurice: “We expect Nik back very soon.”_

“You’re really taking your time, aren’t you, baby?” Mark says to Nikolaj in his high chair. Nikolaj just smiles at him.

“I’ve actually been looking into all that,” Blake says quietly. “I talked to Kuli about it a little more, and I did some Googling. I guess there’s usually some cosmic reason for a person to de-age, and sometimes it doesn’t even have to do with them. Like, it’s supposed to be a lesson, and once the person in question has fulfilled what they have to do, it’ll get fixed. So I think if we try to figure out _why_ he’s a baby, that might help him get back to normal.”

“Well,” Mark replies, the thought coming to mind immediately, “if there’s gotta be a _reason_ , then it must have to do with Pa—”

Mark’s thought is interrupted by a knock on Blake’s apartment door. Mark looks over, confused, but Blake gets up without questioning it. He opens the door, and Patrik is there, looking sheepish and carrying the massive case for his PlayStation that he takes everywhere.

“Hey, Patty,” Blake says.

“Hey Wheels. Oh, hey Scheif,” Patrik says. They look at each other, wide-eyed, for a second, neither anticipating the presence of the other.

In his surprise, Mark can’t find any words.

“Pa!” Nikolaj says, clapping his hands. Patrik walks over to Nikolaj in his high chair and lifts him out with one arm, resting him on his hip with practiced ease.

“Hey, Fly,” he says. “You ready, little man?”

Patrik walks to the connected living room, putting Nikolaj down on the couch and plugging his system into the TV. Mark watches the scene unfold, and then turns to Blake questioningly. Blake puts his hand out as if to say _don’t say anything_. In the living room, Patrik has the TV set up for Fortnite and Nikolaj sat up in his lap. He’s whispering to Nikolaj in low Finnish as he games, and the sight of it is so sweet that Mark might actually be endeared if he wasn’t so confused.

Blake walks back into the kitchen, past the table where Mark is, toward the hallway. He gives a gentle wave of the hand to beckon Mark to follow him. Mark does as he’s told, shaking his head and following Blake down the hall to his bedroom, closing the door behind them.

Blake navigates past the crib to sit on the bed. “He comes by once in a while and games with him. Mostly in the afternoon of practice days, or off days.”

Mark’s mouth hangs open as he processes the information; after a second he shakes his head, now only more convinced that his theory is correct. “I mean, then there’s your answer about the reason. It’s Patrik. It _has_ to be,” he says.

Blake sighs. “Yeah, probably, but what am I supposed to say to him? ‘Hey Patty! I noticed that you might be in love with your best friend who is also now a baby, and that you being in love with him might be the reason he turned into a baby in the first place! Wanna talk about it?’ I’m sure that’ll go over _great_ with our extremely sensitive and currently slumping superstar.”

“Well, maybe if you frame it a little differently?” Mark grimaces. “You could just talk to him, like, about the whole thing in general.”

“I really thought that being captain was gonna be more like talking to players about the game, and less like talking to players about delicate emotional issues,” Blake says, sighing. “This is really just… fucked. In so many ways.”

He looks tired. He has for the whole month, really. Blake doesn’t know how to half-ass anything. Mark sits beside Blake, and the bed sinks under his weight. They slide toward the middle, toward one another. “I can do it with you,” Mark says suddenly. “I’ve got the A, right? You don’t have to be alone.”

Blake chuckles softly, like something Mark said was amusing, somehow, but he nods. “Yeah, okay. Together.” He reaches around and pats Mark on the back, but stops quickly, in an aborted gesture of comfort. “Okay. C’mon.” Blake gets up. Mark follows him out of the room. 

The living area is down the hall, through the kitchen. Patrik is parked on the couch, Nikolaj in his lap. Blake sits in the recliner across from him and Mark, left with no other option, sits beside Patrik.

Patrik raises his eyebrows, pausing the game and putting his controller down. He reaches under Nikolaj’s armpits and repositions him carefully on his knees. “What’s up? Are you guys doing, like, a captain’s intervention on me?” He scrunches up his face. “I _know_ I haven’t been playing well, but I promise I’m gonna do better.”

“No, it’s not about that,” Blake says. “It’s just… with Nikolaj. We just wanted to check in—with everyone, not just you—about how you’re dealing. It’s been three weeks—”

“I know,” Patrik says, cutting him off, voice clipped. “I know how long it’s been. And it’s fine. What do you want me to say? He’s a baby now. Nothing I can do about it.”

Blake exhales, looking over to Mark. 

“Well,” Mark says, taking the cue from Blake, without any plan whatsoever as to what he’s going to say, “Kuli thinks there’s probably a way to get him back to normal. You know him better than anyone, so if you think there’s any sort of reason he might’ve de-aged, like something going on in his life, that might help.” He swerves gently around any mention of Patrik’s feelings toward Nikolaj, not wanting to be the one to make that confrontation.

“What do you mean?” Patrik asks. “Nikolaj’s life is pretty much perfect right now, far as I know.” It’s defensive, maybe even a little venom in it.

“Or it could be something to do with, uh, with your relationship to him,” Blake says. “From what I’ve read it should be something fairly straightforward to turn him back, so maybe if you need to, for example, tell him something, or…” Blake trails off, clearly not wanting to say what they’re all thinking.

“No, I don’t need to tell him anything.” Patrik looks at Blake, then down at his hands. “Nicky… Nicky knows. Trust me, he knows _exactly_ how I feel.” And his face is red, and Nikolaj is gurgling in his lap, hand wrapped around his finger, and Patrik looks so sad, like someone’s uncorked him and let all the life out.

The room floods with an uneasy silence. It suffocates Mark, leaves him feeling oppressively alone, even as he’s next to teammates that have become his family.

“Well, that’s okay,” he says, rushing through the words. “We’ll figure it out.” Mark attempts a reassuring smile. He nearly forgets that he’s the alternate captain and he should be the person to lean on, especially when so little is going right for Patrik lately.

“Okay.” Patrik nods and looks at his feet.

He leaves soon after, citing his pre-game nap. Then it’s just Blake and Mark in the apartment again, Blake cradling Nikolaj in his arms, Mark sitting on the couch with his hands on his knees, feeling the discomfort settle in him like an ocean calming after a storm.

He stands.

He says: “I should probably go—”

Blake says: “If you wanted to stay—”

They look at each other a moment. Mark needs to take his pre-game nap. He imagines taking it here, in Blake’s bed, in Blake’s arms. He takes a step back. “Sorry,” he says as he leaves. He takes his pre-game nap in his own house, in the king sized bed.

*

They’re in Edmonton to finish the year, quite literally, boarding the plane in the dying minutes of 2018. The staff has decked out the plane and the players, giving them hats and those annoying party blowers, filling the plane with balloons and streamers.

Mark sits in his seat next to Blake and smiles. Blake’s wearing a “Happy New Year” headband and Mark’s got on the stupid 2019 sunglasses.

“What a year, eh?” he says, laughing.

“Yeah, for sure.” Blake pulls out his phone and puts it on the table; it’s 11:57. “We’ve been through a lot together.”

Mark thinks back on the year and exhales heavily. The injury, playoffs, their summer training together, and now with Nikolaj. It’s been a hell of a year. The clock ticks to 11:58.

“I wouldn’t trade it,” Mark says quietly, so only Blake can hear. He turns to Mark and considers him with a curious little half-smile.

“No? Not for anything?” he asks. “Not even the cup?”

Mark breathes out a laugh. “Okay. Maybe the cup. But think of it this way. When we win it this year, it’ll feel a lot better having been through the heartbreak first.”

11:59.

“I’d tell you not to wallow in your own pain, but I think you might actually be right this time.” Blake fidgets with his phone. It’s not the new year yet. 2018 is hanging on to its final moments; they drag on as the rest of the team hustles onto the plane, stowing their bags and getting settled, making noise and celebrating the win and the new year.

“Most of the time, I try to not even let myself think about it. But sometimes, I can’t help but hope.” Mark’s the ultimate professional. He’ll do anything for the team. He’ll never get ahead of himself or say things in scrums that he’ll regret. But Mark’s a man, too, full of hope and fear and expectation.

Mark leans his elbows on the table and looks at Blake. He’s not sure on the time; in his fidgeting, Blake has flipped the phone face down. But behind them, deeper into the plane, the boys start cheering, and Mark figures that the clock has turned into the new year.

He instinctively turns to Blake, not even sure what he’s expecting. Blake’s heard the cheers too, and he flips the phone back over. 12:00. Blake looks up from the phone to Mark, blinking at him once or twice and just barely wetting his bottom lip with his tongue.

 _Don’t hope_ , Mark thinks. At the same time, Blake leans towards him. Mark’s heart rate spikes. He sucks his lips in to wet them down, but as he starts to flutter his eyes shut, Blake puts a hand on Mark’s shoulder and kisses him on his forehead.

 _Oh, right_ , Mark thinks.

“Happy new year, Scheif. Don’t tell KC, but you’re my favorite liney.”

Across the aisle, Kyle’s ginger head pokes out. “Bitch?!” he says jokingly, laughing because everyone knows that Mark and Blake are each other’s favorites. Mark laughs too, but it’s empty. The plane takes off, flying them into a new year of possibilities, and Mark reminds himself that soon, Nikolaj will be back to his old self and everything will be back to normal, as if nothing had ever happened, as if the malaise was really just a malaise.

He and Blake both watch _Suits_ on the flight, but on separate tablets; they’re not on the same episode.

*

Back in the Winnipeg parking lot, the air so cold Mark’s car door is frozen shut, they both fumble with their keys, hands too cold to get a handle on them.

“Stupid door won’t open,” Mark grumbles, shaking at it. For the amount of money he spent on it, he thinks it should at least operate properly. One space over, Blake manages to yank his own door open.

“I can drive you,” he says, nodding at the open door. Further out in the lot, Mark hears yelling; some of the younger guys, probably, whose nights are just starting, new year’s parties abound in the city. Mark knows that one of them is Andrew, after he’d nudged Mark at the end of the flight and said, “hey, Scheif, I’m gonna go out. I’ll be home tomorrow.”

Mark thinks he could probably wrestle the door open, but he says yes anyway, letting Blake toss his bag in the trunk. He climbs into the passenger seat and Blake drives them out of the lot, music playing softly over the radio. 

“Hey, can I interest you in a nightcap?” Blake glances over at Mark. “Feels a little weird to be all alone on new year’s.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Nikolaj is at the Perreaults’ and Blake’s apartment is cold and dark when Mark follows him in. Blake nods at the couch, so Mark sits while Blake fumbles in the kitchen, glasses clinking. After a moment, Blake re-enters the living area with a bottle of wine and two glasses.

“I hope wine’s okay,” he says. “I figure we kind of deserve it, after the first half we’ve had.”

Mark nods. Blake sits beside him and pours the wine. They cheers to the new year and sip on the wine. It’s not something that either of them really does; they’re usually among the designated drivers, the ones drinking water at clubs while the other guys get wasted and messy. But Mark doesn’t even consider it as he has a glass, and then another.

Mark loses count of how many glasses he has, but before long, the first bottle is tipped over, empty, and the second is on it’s way to halfway gone. “Do you ever get tired?” Mark asks, feeling drunk and honest.

“Tired? I’m always tired,” Blake laughs emptily. 

“No.” Mark tugs Blake’s sleeve. “That’s not what I meant. Like, tired of doing this. Playing hockey. Doing the same thing, year after year. All those years of losing.”

Blake sips his wine. “No,” he says simply. “This is the dream life. Some of it… isn’t what I thought the dream life would be, but I still love it. What’d you say earlier? ‘Wouldn’t trade it for anything’?” He pauses a moment, swirling the wine in his glass, as if pondering Mark’s statement from the plane. “Yeah, that’s about right.”

Blake smiles. The corner of his eyes crinkle, tiny wrinkles spreading out like spiderwebs, the ever-present reminder that Blake is older than Mark. He blinks slow and there’s a faraway look in his eye. There are years that Mark didn’t see, things Blake and Bryan still whisper about once in a while that happened while Mark was spending all his time skating around Barrie without a care, following Aaron around and doing whatever. There are years beyond that, before even Atlanta, Blake’s time in Boston that he doesn’t talk much about to _anyone_. 

Mark can’t imagine his life without hockey, without his greatest passion, but his career stretches out before him in his mind like an empty highway. “I love every day,” he says truthfully. He finishes his glass. “I want to play hockey with you for the rest of my career. But then… what about later, you know? Trades, retirement, whatever comes next?”

Some people don’t plan that far. In Mark’s mind, he can’t imagine retirement. Hockey is his one guarantee, the one thing he’s always had and always expects to have. Mark considers Blake, though, the end of his career probably closer than the beginning, and tries to imagine his own career without him. He realizes that maybe Blake’s entwined himself with hockey, become a second guarantee. 

Mark has two things for sure. He has hockey, and he has Blake.

Blake doesn’t say anything. “Are you afraid?” Mark asks, words falling out of his mouth without a filter. “Of, like, being alone when you don’t have hockey anymore?” he clarifies.

“A long time ago, I thought…” Blake says, trailing off. “I’m not sure. There was a time when I thought maybe I’d get married, have a family. But hockey tears those things apart sometimes.” Blake finishes his glass. He twirls the stem between his fingers, quiet for a long time. In the kitchen, the refrigerator purrs. “It’s okay to be alone, though.” 

Mark doesn’t fully understand. There are so many years Blake doesn’t talk about, so many things he doesn’t say. “I don’t want to be alone forever,” he says, not sure if he _can_ say anything else.

+

He barely remembers the rest of the night. It slips away from Mark like the wine glass out of his fingers. He wakes up to sun shining through Blake’s window and the rhythm of Blake’s chest rising and falling underneath him. They’re wrapped around each other on the couch they spent hours talking on.

Mark freezes, body tensing as he realizes their position. Blake’s arms are wrapped low around his waist, his hold solid on him. He wiggles slightly, trying to slip out of his grasp without waking him. He slips, his wrist buckles, and he falls unceremoniously off the couch onto the floor. He feels the landing in every sore muscle and bruise and winces.

Blake doesn’t wake, though, so Mark tiptoes into the kitchen to put the coffee on. His head pounds, and he sifts through their conversation from the night before, trying to piece it back together. He tries to remember how Blake replied, what their final moments before slipping into sleep were like, how Blake’s arms ended up around him. 

His phone pings as he watches the coffee drip into the pot. It’s Brendan in the group chat, making a joke about his hangover. It’s been a long time since Mark would joke about hangovers. He’s gotten a little too old to find the humor in them. Instead, now he just breathes in the smell of the coffee as it permeates the apartment. He pads back into the living area and picks the wine glasses off the ground, careful not to clink them together. He brings them back into the kitchen and sets them down on the counter.

He returns for the wine bottles; Blake shifts in his sleep, drawing his eyebrows together and rolling onto his side. His dress shirt stretches across his chest, tight around his shoulders and arms. Mark allows himself to stare a moment, and when he bends down to pick up the bottles, Blake blinks slow, waking up.

He looks up at Mark from under heavy eyelids and takes a deep breath in. “Coffee?” he asks. Mark nods. Blake hums a note of contentment and rolls into a sitting position, rubbing his eyes and yawning. Mark accidentally knocks the wine bottles together and they both wince at the ringing. “We have today off, yeah?” Blake says drily.

“Thankfully,” Mark replies, rolling his eyes.

They sit at the kitchen table, elbows propped up and socked feet sliding on the tiled floor, and chat until the coffee finishes brewing. 

“Frenchy’s coming by before lunchtime to drop off Fly,” Blake mentions. Mark raises his eyebrows. He’s aware of how he looks, still in his dress shirt but his jacket discarded on Blake’s floor somewhere, his hair uncombed. Blake looks similar, his shirt unbuttoned two too many spots, the collar askew. 

“Oh, well I—” Mark starts to offer to leave before he remembers that his car is still sitting in the lot at the airport. He snaps his mouth shut.

“You know, if you want,” Blake says, getting up to pour the coffee, “you can just hang here today.” His voice is innocent enough, level and even. “We could even take Fly out, if you wanted, go to lunch somewhere and pretend he’s my sister’s kid.”

“Sure,” Mark says, because it’s been years and he can’t say no to Blake.

They spend the morning cleaning up Blake’s apartment until the bell rings. Blake hurries over to the door and Mark spins in place, wondering if he should sit and act normal or retreat to the bathroom. He misses his chance, and is standing looking like a deer in the headlights when Blake opens the door to Mathieu holding a sleepy Nikolaj.

“Hey Wheels!” Mathieu spots Mark, too. “Oh. Hey Schief!” he doesn’t say anything beyond that, but there’s interest in his eye.

Blake lifts Nikolaj out of Mathieu’s arms. “How was your night, Frenchy?” Blake asks as he carries Nikolaj into the apartment and settles Nikolaj into his chair.

“Oh, boring,” Mathieu says, leaning in the doorway. “Woke up the wifey but luckily not the kids, had a kiss, and went straight to sleep.” He smiles with an open mouth as if he means to say more, but he doesn’t.

“That’s good,” Blake says.

“Yeah, for sure. Always good to spend New Year’s with someone you love.” Mathieu rubs a spot on his chest, probably a bruise or just soreness from the game last night.

There’s an awkward moment, maybe, where no one says anything, but then Mathieu’s saying something about his kids and excusing himself. Blake and Mark chat and Nikolaj babbles at them and then Blake’s pulling up menus and they’re picking out a place for lunch.

No one recognizes them at the restaurant but they keep baseball caps pulled low over their brows anyway. They talk lowly and Nikolaj laughs loudly at seemingly nothing at all. A few strangers wave at him and Nikolaj gurgles back, being perfectly adorable and personable to all the young women cooing at him.

“Fly’s gonna be pissed when he learns that women liked him better as a baby,” Blake tells Mark. Mark snorts out a laugh into his water.

“His game has never been better.”

Nikolaj mushes his hands into his food, incapable of chirping back. Blake rolls his eyes. They talk lowly through the din of the restaurant, heads bent together over the table, keeping their eyes low as not to be recognized. Mark feels naked in a strange way, out with Blake and Nikolaj in public like this, open to any prying eyes or cameras.

But the salad is good and the conversation is better, and after Blake pays the bill at the end, he says, “wanna go to the zoo?” and Mark says, “sure.”

Blake carries Nikolaj around the zoo and lets him wave and babble at the animals. He likes the polar bears best, chirruping out little happy sounds and pressing his tiny hands on the glass as they swim above the three of them. Blake and Mark look at each other and chuckle, because this kid is always finding new ways to surprise him.

As Blake holds Nikolaj to the glass, Mark stands back and feels his heart overflow. Something feels _right_ about the day out, like Blake is meant to be wearing that stupid baby carrier and Mark is meant to be walking a step behind him watching fondly.

A woman approaches them eventually, asking for autographs and wondering about the baby.

“He’s my sister’s kid,” Blake lies through a smile as he signs the brim of the woman’s hat. “His name’s Louie.”

“Aww!” the woman says, smiling at Nikolaj. “It’s so kind of you to babysit for her. It’s always a godsend when people can watch my little ones.”

Mark signs her hat too and she waves goodbye, wishing them luck in the rest of the season.

“Louie?” Mark says to Blake wryly, wondering where _that_ came from.

Blake shrugs. “I always liked that name.”

“Alright.” A polar bear swims above them, casting a moving shadow over the floor. “It’s nice, I like it.” _Louie Wheeler_ , Mark thinks. _Louie Scheifele-Wheeler_ , he self-corrects. He chokes on the thought of it, and looks at his feet the whole way out of the polar bear exhibit.

*

It’s late by the time they get back from the zoo, having stopped for dinner on the way back. They give Nikolaj a bath, and then Mark is floating through the apartment, wondering when he should leave, wondering _how_ he should leave when his car is still sitting in the lot at the airport.

“Hey, we should get your car,” Blake says, walking out of the bathroom, Nikolaj in arm.

“Oh. Yeah.” Mark nods. Being a pretend family was fun for the day, but he should go home to Andrew at some point. He realizes with a grimace that he hasn’t texted Andrew all day.

Blake drives them back to the airport and pulls up beside Mark’s abandoned car.

“Okay,” Mark says. “Well, thanks for today. Happy New Year, Wheels, I’ll see you tomorrow at the skills c—”

Blake grabs his sleeve. “Hey,” he says. “It’s been really helpful having you around, with Nikolaj and all.” He looks down at the console a moment. “I know you said that I could ask you for help if I needed it, and, I just, if you wanted, would you want to stay with me? Just for a few days?”

Mark freezes in the passenger seat. The winter wind blows outside, and the howling rattles the car slightly. Mark thinks about going home, and then he thinks about going to Blake’s apartment, and he thinks about the blurred line between the two. The house he shares with Andrew has never really been _home_ , anyway.

“Yeah, of course,” he says. “Many hands make light work, y’know, with Nikolaj, and all.” Because that’s all it really is; it can just be about doing what’s best for Nikolaj. It doesn’t have to be about being in love with Blake.

Mark follows Blake back to the apartment and shoots Andrew a text: _wont be home tonight_. He puts his phone in his pocket and his keys in a drawer. Blake can drive him to the rink now, anyway.

*

They watch hockey all night on Blake’s couch after they put Nikolaj to bed, the flat screen TV standing in stark contrast to the snugness of the rest of the apartment. They chat about the games, the best and worst plays, the teams on runs and the ones in ruts. Mark could talk about hockey for hours, but especially with Blake; he always sees something that Mark doesn’t.

Blake yawns at the tail end of the late game and stretches his arms up over his head. “Okay. Time for bed.” He looks over at Mark a second.

“Oh, uh, okay,” Mark says. “I can, um, sleep on the couch?”

Blake opens and then closes his mouth. He shuffles his feet. “It’ll be bad for your back,” he finally says. “C’mon, we can just share. The bed’s too big, anyway.”

 _Oh_. Mark goes hot and prickly at the thought of sharing the bed with Blake. His body still remembers the exact way Blake held him the previous night on the couch, still can feel his hands on him. But maybe Blake’s right. It’ll be better for Mark’s back to sleep in a real bed. It doesn’t have to be about being in love with Blake.

But when Mark climbs in beside him, Mark realizes very quickly that there are some things he can’t ignore. With Blake beside him in just a ratty tee and boxers, Mark’s feelings swell inside him like ocean waves, filling him and threatening to crack him at his edges.

Blake is breathing heavily beside him and Mark doesn’t dare turn to look. The room narrows around them; Mark squeezes his eyes shut. He counts his breaths until he falls asleep, not allowing himself to think about the man next to him, the man that’s always next to him.

Maybe it’s all in vain. Maybe Mark is destined to fall forever. Maybe there’s no timeline where he doesn’t lie in bed with Blake and pretend to be okay.

Every time, it comes back to Blake. Everything Mark does, turns him around to Blake. Mark dreams that he’s skating, but the ice turns to slush underneath him and when he looks up, sinking into the rink, Blake is there, singing to him. 

When he wakes up in the morning, Blake has glasses on and he’s reading a book. Mark faintly remembers that it’s 2019, and for a moment he’s paralyzed with fear of the passage of time. Then Blake notices that he’s awake, turns onto his side, and says, “mornin’.”

“Mornin’,” Mark whispers back.

*

The Jets skills competition is later that day, and it’s always pretty boring but also kind of fun, signing things and taking selfies with the fans when the crew takes all the glass down. Blake drives them to the rink, and Mark feels a little funny climbing out of the passenger seat of Blake’s car. He’s so used to being the one driving, Andrew in the passenger seat with his feet up on the dash. He feels young again, bumming rides from Jacob and renting a car when he needs one. There’s something about owning a car that ties you down to Winnipeg, constructs permanence and tangibility in your existence in the city. Mark trails behind Blake and feels dizzy and ephemeral.

Blake’s carrying Nikolaj, who he’ll hand off to the trainers for the night, just like on game days. Since it’s the skills competition, and no one really takes it seriously, they went back and forth about bringing Nikolaj out to the bench and pretending he’s some other kid if anyone asks. But there are still tweets pouring in about Nikolaj being gone, for nearly a full month now, and it’s best not to push their luck.

Mark thinks about pushing his luck as he catches up to Blake and they walk in time. Blake looks back at him and smiles. “This’ll be a good practice round before San Jose, eh Scheif?” He jokes.

“I could say the same to you,” he replies. He knows they’ll take Blake for the All-Star Game. Mark’s not really on his level, to be honest. Blake’s the All Star on the team.

“Well, we’ll see about that.” Blake smirks. This argument about who is more deserving of the nod has been hashed and rehashed enough times that they agree to disagree about who is better.

They don’t have time to argue about it, anyway, because they’re not three feet away from Blake’s car when Kyle is trotting over with a coffee cup in hand. “Hey guys!” he says. 

They both greet their linemate, and Kyle smiles at them before casually looking over his shoulder back toward Blake’s car. When he turns back, Mark doesn’t miss the flash of confusion over his face. There’s only one car behind them, Blake’s car, Mark’s car pointedly missing. Mark watches in Kyle’s face as he dissects the odd situation before shrugging it off.

He asks what they’re competing in and gets caught up in talking about his own events and the bets he had going with the rest of the boys, easily distracted from his earlier pause about the situation.

“And Patty’s gotta buy me drinks for the rest of the season if the U.S. beats Finland tonight,” he says confidently, referencing the World Juniors gold medal game that night. Mark doesn’t have a dog in the fight since Canada was already eliminated, but Blake tilts his head back and laughs.

“I’m pretty sure he bet me six steak dinners on the game,” Blake laughs, clearly confident about the bet. “Poor kid’s gonna be paying out the ass after Finland gets their shit wrecked tonight.”

Kyle and Blake laugh about it, speculating about what Patrik’s bet each of the Americans on the team. Mark just walks along and smiles. Silently, part of him hopes Finland wins so they can feel the same pain he did as a Canadian, but he wouldn’t dare voice that. It’ll be fun enough to just see them all chirp each other all night.

*

It’s partway into the skills competition when the game ends and Patrik is shoving his phone screen at all the Americans, shouting about Finland and telling each one what they owe him. The media guys even let him announce it to the booing crowd, a stupid grin plastered on his face. He skates by the bench, cupping his ear and goading the guys on as they chirp him.

“Guess he’s gotta rep the homeland extra hard now that Army’s gone,” Adam says. Mark smiles amusedly at him. He knows that Adam’s joking, but talking about Joel still stings a little. Adam must remember, too, because his smile falters and he skates off to mingle with a few other guys. Mark can’t help but feel like there’s something slightly askew this year in Winnipeg. 2019 feels… strange.

Nikolaj still being gone doesn’t help. As much as he’s a goofball, he’s one of those guys that gets everyone to stick together.

Mark pretends that he’s not worrying about it too much. Nikolaj will come back when he’s good and ready. He ends up sitting with Tyler and Josh, a few feet in front of some of the other forwards, as they watch the accuracy shooting.

“Scheifs hasn’t been home,” Mark overhears Andrew say innocently. Mark told Andrew that he’s been hooking up with someone and staying at her place; it’s, in a horrible way, only partly a lie. “Guess he’s finally sleeping with someone.”

“Wait,” Kyle says. “That doesn’t make sense, since his car wasn’t—” he cuts himself off suddenly. Mark isn’t sure if he’s concluded something about Mark and Blake’s relationship or if he’s explained it away in his mind with some other reasoning.

“Fuck,” Patrik grumbles.

Mark isn’t sure what Patrik is thinking, but before he can try to unravel it in his head, he’s dragged into another conversation with Jacob and Josh about some other bet about the hardest shot competition, and then he’s laughing with them about a chirp from Dustin.

After the skills competition ends, Mark tilts his head over to Andrew and says, “I won’t be home again tonight, Copper.”

Andrew laughs and slaps Mark’s ass. “‘Atta boy, Scheifs!” he says. “Finally letting loose, you _dog_!”

Mark laughs too, because it’s easy to laugh when Andrew talks like a stupid college guy and hangs his tongue out of his mouth. Later that night, Mark climbs back into the passenger seat of Blake’s car and, feeling ephemeral once again, lets Blake take him home and wrap him up in his arms, Nikolaj gurgling in the crib.

*

They end up taking Blake _and_ Mark for the All Star Game. 

Paul’s coming along too, since he’s the coach with the highest point percentage, so they all chat and talk about flights and what they’re gonna do with Nikolaj.

The whole thing is a quick turnaround, really. They play until the player’s break, then Mark and Blake head to Florida to golf and watch football, with their stuff already packed for San Jose. Nikolaj’s staying with Dustin and Emily this time, since Mathieu’s going away, but all the Jets families have spent at least a little time with babified-Nikolaj so Blake just passes him off with repeated words of thanks and then they’re off to Florida.

They get drunk and watch the Pats win and fall asleep together on the couch in the basement of Blake’s summer home, then catch their next flight to San Jose. They’re corralled by a small team of media and PR people, funnelled from the airport to their hotel room. Mark isn’t one to break a habit that’s been working, so he leaves the bed closer to the window alone with its sheets tucked in and crawls in beside Blake.

“All Stars, huh?” Blake says wryly, looking up at the ceiling.

“I guess so.” Mark smiles. “Told ya that they were gonna take you.”

“I could say the same.” Blake elbows him under the covers.

“It’s gonna be a long weekend.” Maybe that’s not so bad, though. 

*

The Skills Competition comes first. They get dressed up and head out, signing autographs until their wrists ache and chatting with the rest of the guys from the Central. Mark just follows Blake, doing as he does, since Blake was here last year, and following Blake tends to be a good practice in general.

The competition itself is a drag. They mostly just sit on the ice and pretend to pay attention. They’re not in high demand from the media like the Connor McDavids of the world, and the Jets PR team doesn’t make them go on Snapchat and say stupid things to the fans, so they’re left alone to chirp the other guys and chat the night away.

Afterwards, pulling their suit jackets back on, Rantanen runs over to them, Landeskog and MacKinnon in tow, shouting, “let’s get _drunk!_ ” to all the guys from the Central. Mark and Blake look at each other, shrug, and before long find themselves facing a row of shots in a bar downtown, bracketed by Colorado’s big line, who quickly become Mikko, Gabe, and Nate instead of their last names.

There’s guys from other divisions there too, but the Central guys stick together, Mark in a booth with Mikko and Josi and Blake a few feet away talking with O’Reilly over a couple beers. Mark gets a little drunk and a little flirty, hands all over Mikko. He’s big and broad and his hand is massive on the back of Mark’s neck. He’s funny, and his accent is cute, and he keeps getting more shots because Europeans are _crazy_. 

Mark clinks glasses with Mikko and downs another, laughing about something Mikko said. Alcohol spills out of the glass and down his hand, and it’s still somehow funny, and Mark turns back to look at Blake as he sucks the alcohol off his finger.

Mikko’s hand is in Mark’s hair, and Blake is staring darkly. Mark makes eye contact and blinks innocently, challenging him to come over and stake his claim, if he’s really so bothered by Mikko’s body all over Mark’s. He’s drunk and it seems like a good idea, to look at Blake and lick his lower lip until Blake leans toward O’Reilly, whispers something, then walks over to their booth.

Blake looks at Mikko, then Mark, then he cocks his head to the side and says, “C’mon Scheifs, dance with me.”

Mark slips out of Mikko’s grasp and into Blake’s, his hand on Mark’s hip. The music is loud, the bass reverberating through Mark’s chest. Blake’s got a grip on him, holding him against his body and rocking with him in time to the music. Mark doesn’t pay attention to anything except for the bass pounding through his body and the feeling of Blake pressed against him, grinding and moving to the music.

Blake’s shirt is unbuttoned so a triangle of his chest shows, his hair is sweaty, and his hands are holding Mark’s hips against his own, his long and broad fingers pressing into the shelf of his hip bones. They dance, breathing the same air, so close Mark can see the sweat drip down Blake’s neck and he can feel Blake’s breath hot on his cheek. Mark needs him closer, always closer.

“Let’s go back to the hotel,” he gasps in Blake’s ear, not sure where this is going but pretty sure he’s gonna end up sucking Blake’s dick in the bar bathroom if they don’t get into an Uber pretty soon. “Gotta get outta here.”

“Yeah,” Blake responds, fumbling with his phone to order the Uber. In the car, they sit in tense silence until the driver pulls up to the hotel and wishes them a good night, and then Blake’s all over him again, a hand at Mark’s lower back as they drunkenly stumble into the elevator and back to their room.

Blake jiggles the handle, re-swiping the key card until the door unlocks and they’re falling into the entryway of the room together. They’re electric, at the very edge of something now. It’s been a long night, and Mark’s body is tight with headache and heartache and impending hangover. Mark leans with his back against the door and watches Blake watch him with his dark set eyes.

Blake steps towards him, invading his space, breathing the same air as him. He opens his mouth as if to say something but instead shakes his head. Mark blinks at him, waiting for him to say or do something, anything.

“Fuck,” Blake whispers, before rushing in to Mark and kissing him, crashing their mouths together, getting his hands around Mark’s head to hold him. Mark kisses back hard, needing more, grabbing at the waist of Blake’s suit jacket.

They stumble backward a few feet, kissing wet and sloppily. It’s desperate and hard, but Blake’s taste is heady and intoxicating. It’s everything Mark has wanted for ages, ever since he was a teenager. _Blake_ is here, against him, moving their bodies together, the same Blake who does everything in a way no one else can. He kisses the way he plays hockey, intense and heavy and perfect.

Mark loses himself and his reason in the moment, bumping Blake back into the wall and letting his hands slip to Blake’s belt, toying with his buckle. Blake gasps into Mark’s mouth. Mark yanks at the buckle, undoing it but not even bothering with pulling the belt out of the loops, just getting it out of the way so he can run a thumb over the button and feel Blake half-hard with his thigh.

Blake fusses with Mark’s belt in turn and pulls away from his mouth to kiss his neck. He gets all the sensitive parts, stars bursting in Mark’s vision as Blake pops the button and pulls down the zipper of Mark’s pants. Mark does likewise, and then suddenly they have hands down the front of each other’s pants, and Blake is sucking on Mark’s neck, and Mark in leaning forward to box Blake in against the wall with his forearm.

Blake’s dick is long and hardening fast in Mark’s hand. It’s a positive feedback loop that’s going to explode, Blake stroking him and kissing him, and Mark gasping and working Blake’s dick faster in return. He’s impossibly hard already just from the fantasy of the experience, so he’s dangerously close to coming and won’t last much longer. They’re barely even kissing, mostly just panting into one another’s mouths. He focuses on the pleasure, Blake’s hands calloused but gentle, his tongue hot and wet, his dick heavy and leaking in Mark’s hand. 

Blake runs his thumb across Mark’s slit and he’s coming so hard his knees give out. He slips down as the orgasm rushes through him, only held up by his arm braced against the wall, and he jerks Blake faster as it passes over him in waves, faster and faster until Blake’s breath hitches and he’s coming too, covering Mark’s hand and groaning.

Mark stumbles backward, bumping back into the opposite wall of the entryway. They stare at each other, wide-eyed, for a moment, and then Blake is pushing himself off the wall as if shocked and tripping into the bathroom, mumbling, “just, uh, gonna,” on his way.

Mark sits on the bed further from the bathroom, feeling come cool on his skin while Blake is in the bathroom. The shower turns on, then runs for a long time. Mark doesn’t even notice once Blake’s slipped into bed, because Blake’s gotten into the other bed, not the same one as Mark. He understands; it was a mistake, and it’s a mistake they won’t make again. The past two months have just been a series of mistakes, playing house together first and sharing a bed next and then finally getting off together. Mistake, mistake, mistake.

Mark showers the come off his skin and climbs into bed, alone.

*

The All Star Game is the next day and when Mark wakes up, Blake’s puttering around whistling like it’s any other morning. It gives Mark pause, but he craves normalcy after _whatever_ it was that happened last night, so he gets up and gets changed and jokes with Blake like everything’s the same.

They don’t talk about it. They do the song and dance for the media and chirp the guys in the room and go out and play some hockey with Paul behind them on the bench. It feels _good_ , and maybe that’s the worst part. They say hockey players have to have a short memory, but to Mark, this feels like amnesia.

It’s fun, and easy, and when they go home to Winnipeg, Blake drives Mark to his apartment and not Mark’s house without question. Something goes unsaid for a minute, Mark floating through the apartment like a ghost, like he’s finally realized he doesn’t quite belong. Blake’s life is a puzzler printed in the Sunday newspaper and Mark’s the thing that doesn’t _go_ with everything else. But then Blake strips off his shirt, climbs into bed, looks up at Mark with his green eyes, pats the space next him, and the fear melts away like nothing.

Blake makes everything go away. Mark lies next to him, their arms pressed together, and he pretends that he doesn’t remember the feeling of Blake’s hand on his dick in the hotel in San Jose. As he falls asleep, the sound of Blake’s breathe lulling him into unconsciousness, he might just succeed.

*

Something goes sour after the All Star Break. 

They start losing games, and they can’t seem to stop. It doesn’t help that Nikolaj is _still_ a baby, for _some_ reason, and missing one of your best wingers for an undetermined amount of time sure doesn’t help. It’s been close to two months, and the media has almost accepted it, still asking Paul daily for updates that he won’t give, but otherwise not speculating. A hit Nikolaj took in his last game is blamed. People online say it’s a concussion, a bad one, and maybe he’ll never play again.

People online aren’t right about Nikolaj’s head, but Mark is getting more concerned about the “never playing again” aspect of it. So is everyone else, it seems, because every day the locker room gets a little more tense, a little more distant. Blake doesn’t seem to notice, too caught up in all his responsibilities.

But Mark notices. He notices when the room is quiet outside of the music before the game. He notices when all anyone seems to say on the bench is, “let’s go, boys!”. He notices when Patrik talks to Bryan or Andrew during practice, looking red and flustered, but stops and skates away when Mark tries to approach. Mark’s trying to hold onto everything at once, even when it’s all splitting apart at the seams. He smiles at the boys in the room then goes home to Blake’s apartment and curls up in his arms and falls asleep.

They still don’t talk about the All Star Weekend. They go on living their domestic life pretending they didn’t have their hands down each other’s pants a week ago. They don’t talk about the team, either, even when it feels like something is broken, and maybe it was broken a long time ago.

Maybe Mark never noticed because he was too busy mooning over Blake. Mark’s starting to realize that there’s a lot of things he didn’t pick up on until the All Star Weekend shocked him awake.

Blake gets shocked awake too, eventually. It’s a game in Anaheim. They get shelled, their defensive system falling apart and the forwards not clicking, every pass intercepted or blocked or tumbling off sticks. In the end, it’s a 9-3 loss and Blake has his hands balled into fists on the bench as Anaheim’s fans celebrate around them.

He calls a team meeting after the loss. It’s an embarrassment, a blowout of this proportion against a non-playoff team in early February. Blake is fuming, and Mark looks at him carefully.

“Hey,” he whispers, putting his hand on Blake’s arm. Blake softens around his edges a little, and nods at Mark.

“Let’s fucking fix this,” Blake says, breathing deeply and standing. He looks around the room at the guys, their red downturned faces. “There’s something fucking broken in here. If you have something to say, then you should say it now.”

Patrik stands immediately. Mark blinks. Patrik doesn’t say much in the room, not seriously, at least. He knows he’s been upset since Nikolaj became a baby, but he’s surprised at the immediacy in his taking his stand in front of the room, and the determination written in his face.

“Yeah,” he says. “There’s something fucking broken in this room, and I think it’s _you_ , Wheels,” he says, stabbing a finger in Blake’s direction.

Blake’s eyes are hard but he says nothing. Mark holds his breath.

“Ever since… with Nikolaj…” his voice is broken, shredded from the game and his emotions. “It’s like you’re not even, fuckin’, _here_ anymore! Fuck! You… you _know_ how I feel, and it’s like you’re not even trying!”

Mark swallows hard at the mention of _how Patrik feels_ , and he looks around the room, gauging reactions. Most of the guys are watching in shock, eyes wide. But Andrew, Bryan, Adam, the guys that Patrik talks most to, they’re looking down at their feet like this is a long time coming.

“I’m not gonna yell back at you, Patty,” Blake says evenly.

“I wish you would!” Patrik throws his elbow guard at the wall. “I wish you would _care_ —”

“—I _do_ care—”

“But you _don’t_!” Patrik waves his hands around like he’s searching for the words, like he can pluck the English right out of the air in front of him. “All you _care_ about is starting your little family with Scheif. And you don’t care about trying to make Nikolaj fucking _normal_ again, because you’ve got your perfect little life now and your perfect little family and you’re just, just, trying to keeping it all the way it is because you’re too much of a pussy to tell him that you’re in love with him!” Patrik breathes hard, dropping his hands to his sides.

Mark turns to Blake. _In love with him_? Wait, that can’t be right. But Patrik looks embarrassed like he’s said too much and upset like he’s about to cry and frustrated like his best friend has been gone for two months.

Blake’s head is bowed.

“I don’t agree with everything you said,” he says evenly. “But… I’m sorry. I know this has been harder for you than anyone else.” Blake turns to Mark. “And he’s right; I’m in love with you, Scheif, and maybe I haven’t been doing my best to get Nikolaj back to normal because… because I’ve _liked_ it, in a sick way.”

“Wheels,” Mark says softly.

Next to Blake, in Nikolaj’s stall, there is a soft _pop_ , and then, sitting in the stall, is a very naked, very _not_ -baby Nikolaj. “What the _fuck_.” Nikolaj’s voice is hoarse. “What the fuck just happened.”

Nikolaj is immediately mobbed by the guys, who help him up and get him clothes. Nikolaj is having a hard time standing, let alone walking, and his eyes are wide and confused as he takes in his surroundings. He steps around the locker room like a baby deer, and Patrik is hanging onto his arm for dear life, supporting him but also likely supporting himself. As the guys surround him and chatter at him about the last two months, Mark and Blake stay in their stalls, sitting off to the side away from everyone, only looking at each other.

“I guess I’ve been so… lonely,” Blake says. He looks down at his hands. “And having the baby, and _you_ , it finally felt like something made sense in my life. After we… at the All Star Game… I was so afraid I had messed it all up…”

“Me too,” Mark says, and something about those words suck all the loneliness and fear out of him. It’s as easy as saying _me, too_. “I love you too, Wheels.”

Blake takes Mark’s hands in his own and they stare at each other while a ruckus occurs on the other side of the locker room. They pay it no mind; Mark isn’t sure what’s going to come next, but whatever it is, he won’t be alone for it.

+

_epilogue_

Nikolaj, apparently, doesn’t remember anything from being a baby. 

He says it feels like a long-forgotten dream, just wisps of a feeling coming and going at certain moments. He scrunches up his nose and sticks out his tongue at the mention of peaches now. He says it’s unappetizing. Once, Mark catches him humming “The Start of Something New”, even though he says he’s never seen _High School Musical_.

On the ice, Nikolaj hits the post and shouts _perkele_ on the bench, and Patrik looks at him a long time with an unreadable face. Mark knows it’s hard and weird for Patrik. Mark knows that Patrik and Nikolaj disappeared for a long time into an empty room after Nikolaj came back, and that now their relationship is… different. He can’t put his finger on how, though.

Mark doesn’t pretend to understand. He knows better than anyone that things change in time. Patrik doesn’t seem so sad anymore, and that’s all that matters. He smiles on the bench, and shows up to team functions with Nikolaj in tow, without looking like he’s got a puncture and a leak somewhere.

Things are different between Blake and Nikolaj now, too. Blake’s over-protective of him, and Nikolaj doesn’t have a sense of space around him anymore. He hugs Blake constantly, and _Baba_ sometimes slips out instead of _Wheels_. When the team hangs out at Blake’s (and now Mark’s, too) apartment, Nikolaj stares at the not-yet-disassembled crib and his voice catches in his throat.

Patrik encircles his wrist with a few fingers. “It’s far away, but close somehow,” Nikolaj says simply, then he takes the beer Patrik passes him.

On the couch, Mark curls into Blake’s side. Blake has his arm around him, anchoring him. It keeps him from floating away, into space and detached from time, floating through the past and the future far ahead of him, spread out like the sunrise dissolving into the morning sky.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! this wasnt easy for me to write in a lot of ways, but if you made it to the end then i just wanna say thank you for reading what ive spent the past few months battling with!! this fic has really become part of me in a lot of ways, and i put a lot of myself into it, so i feel very close to it and im really glad to share it with everyone
> 
> also i wanna say that this fic, especially at the end, dramatizes the rumors abt ~locker room issues~ the jets may have had this season, but obviously i dont think they were caused by nikolaj's injury secretly being de-aging or bc blake and mark are in love. i caution you to understand that any rumors online about locker room issues are just rumors, and that the jets are big boys who are perfectly capable of smoothing over any ruffled feathers that may exist!
> 
> you can find me on tumblr and twitter @raregoose if you like!


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